He said he had gone to Douglas two years earlier for a referral for a specialist to get a diagnosis for a lump in his throat.

"I ended up using a team at UCLA and have no cancer whatsoever," he said in the post.

On Wednesday a fan in the Reddit Q&A asked Kilmer: "A while ago, Michael Douglas claimed you had terminal cancer. What was the story behind that?"

Kilmer responded: "He was probably trying to help me cause press probably asked where I was these days, and I did have a healing of cancer, but my tongue is still swollen altho healing all the time. (sic)

"Because I don't sound my normal self yet people think I may still be under the weather."

His odd phrasing - "a healing of cancer" - might be down to his Christian Scientist faith.

The denomination view sickness as a mental error that a person can be cured of through prayer. In the past Christian Scientists avoided using western medicine all together.

In last November's Facebook post Kilmer said that some of his fans had "mistakenly thought my silence about my personal issues meant that somehow I wasn't being responsible to my health, because of my reliance on prayer and Love."

"Nothing could be further from the truth," he wrote. "I hope this puts to rest any further concerns about my health."